Colossians 2: 2-3 (NIV)
My goal is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that
they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may
know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures
of wisdom and knowledge.
This Lenten Season we look at the revelation that is Jesus. Lent begins on March 6th with Ash Wednesday;
we are going to set the Lenten stage on Transfiguration Sunday (March 3rd). In our reading that morning, Jesus will be
encountered both on the mountain top and in the valley (Luke 9: 28-43).
On that mountain top, the voice from the heavens will say: “This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen
to him.” For the rest of that scene,
Jesus is silent but the next day, when they come down from the mountain, Jesus is
frustrated by a failure of the disciples to sustain healing powers displayed
earlier in the Gospel. Jesus says: “You unbelieving and perverse generation, how
long shall I stay with you and put up with you?” The disciples were previously able to heal
people “everywhere” but now, they fail.
The text is unclear, at least to me, as to what has gone wrong: one scene, they have it, a few scenes later,
whatever they had, is gone. Jesus calls
them “unbelieving and perverse.” I
understand “unbelieving” but perverse is less used in our 21st
Century world. One definition is the “showing
a deliberate and obstinate desire to behave in a way that is unreasonable or
unacceptable, often in spite of the consequences.”
“A deliberate and obstinate desire to behave in a way that is
unreasonable or unacceptable, often in spite of the consequences.”
The disciples have just themselves healed others. Three of them have been on the mountaintop
and heard the voice of God pronounce Jesus as divinely chosen and, given their
first shot out of the barrel to show they get it, they stumble.
What happened in that movement from mountain top to valley?
I’m just guessing here mind you but I wonder if it just wasn’t
life. Don’t we often have a deep and
fundamental desire to behave unreasonably and unacceptably? We glory in mountain top moments, but journey
into that valley, unbelief.
The reality is that Jesus is an ongoing mystery with a revelation of
knowledge and wisdom. That knowledge and
wisdom might be revealed to us is in testing while listening to the prophetic
voice of Jesus himself. My personal take
is that the more I study Jesus, the more I realize I don’t know, I don’t
understand. I am sure that at times,
Jesus could accuse me of being faithless and perverse.
Are we in the United Methodist Church being faithless and perverse, and
if yes, who? My knee jerk is it must be
those who do not agree with me, but that is less than gracious.
I am saddened by the most recent experience in St. Louis this week by
the United Methodist Church to reach some kind of accommodation with how we
understand human sexuality, specifically, homosexuality. We are clearly not of one mind on this. I am frankly, still digesting what happened.
But even in my despair, I invite us to urgently refine the prophetic
call of the mysterious but revealed Jesus.
I believe that means being in, but not of, the world. Instead of being so vanilla and bland we
might be a church in the “middle of anywhere”, I believe we are called to be a church
on the "edge of somewhere” with that somewhere located more in valley than
in mountaintop. That somewhere is
emotionally closer to despair than exhilaration.
Join us in March as we try to unravel that revelation that is both the
mystery and beauty of Jesus.
Selah, Pastor Dennis
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